Jonathan Gruber, teaching MIT's 14.41 Public Finance and Public Policy course, examines why government funds and provides education even though schooling is a private good that benefits the individual who receives it. He walks through the economic rationale for public involvement, including externalities and equity concerns, and turns to the evidence on what public spending actually buys: whether more money per pupil improves outcomes, how class size and school resources affect achievement, and what the research says about the productivity of the education sector. The lecture uses standard public finance tools, cost-benefit framing and empirical studies, to test competing claims about school funding debates. Delivered in Gruber's usual data-driven style with references to specific studies, it runs a full class session and fits into the course's broader unit on government spending programs.